Complete Short Fiction, page 323
“What are you going to do?” she demanded.
“Mackarett and I are going to seize the engine room.”
Still she hesitated. There was misery in her eyes. Hewitt said, “Honey, please hurry . . . What’s the matter?”
“Are you sure you’re going to take me? I’m going to be one of those who gets taken off with you?”
“You’re first,” said Hewitt. “I swear it!”
Tears came to her eyes. “I’m ashamed!” she whispered. “I don’t want to be a deserter. But I’ve got to get off this ship.” Hewitt said, “Hurry, please! If we don’t make speed, nobody will get away!”
Her shame did not prevent her from starting off at a run.
To Mackarett, Hewitt said, “How many men are there in the engine room?”
“Two.”
Hewitt broke open one of the automatics and, while Mackarett watched, removed all but one shell from the magazine. Silently, he handed the weapon over.
Mackarett accepted the gun warily. “Am I also going to be rescued?” he asked.
Hewitt sighed. Ever since he had come aboard, he had felt as if he were moving in quicksand. It was the old story of human beings intent on themselves, resisting the larger purposes of others.
Men were hard indeed to save from disaster.
“Absolutely.” He spoke the falsehood firmly.
“What about my wife and child? Can I take them along?”
Hewitt had been turning his mind away. The question caught him unprepared. Unaccustomed to lying, he was momentarily flustered. He had forgotten that a man would think of his family first.
For a fateful moment he hesitated, trying to think what this would do to his hastily fabricated story. He said at last, lamely, “Yes, they can come too.” Mackarett flashed, “You’re not sure. You didn’t answer fast enough.”
Hewitt was beginning to recover. He said frankly, “You can see how I’ve been operating. I came aboard this ship, and found a revolution in full swing. I had to act fast, but I’m handicapped by the fact that I can offer rescue to three, possibly four people—I think four can be managed. I don’t really care who they are, but in each case it’s got to be someone who helps me. Now you come along and say, my wife and child, also. Let me be blunt. To me, only one thing matters. The drive has to be shut off.”
He was feeling much more confident now. He went on, “Why not leave your wife and kid here? They’ll be all right. But I need those two vacancies to offer as bribes to the men in the engine room.” Mackarett said, “If we can capture those two men, so that no promises are necessary, then can I take my family?” Under his breath, Hewitt cursed the man and his conditions. He had limited his lie as to how many could be rescued, because that was the only way he could put on the pressure. Now, he was being forced to use up his reserves faster than he had intended. But this was the critical moment.
He said, “Absolutely. I promise, on my word of honor.”
He was sweating with anxiety. “For their sake, man! We’re wasting time. You don’t realize how many hours are going by outside. Hurry, for heaven’s sake!”
Mackarett said, “I’ll take your word.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Centaurus or Death!
THE PLAN was for Mackarett to signal Hewitt when the crewmen were off guard. Before they could get over their surprise—or even be sure they were really threatened—Hewitt would rush in. Swiftly, the two men would be disarmed and tied up. And thus, in a few moments, the engine room would be conquered.
It was far indeed from being a perfect strategy. It involved risks—which he dismissed even as he thought of them. Its great merit was surprise.
It’s got to work! he told himself.
It did.
When the two crewmen—Pratt and Leichter—had been tied up, Mackarett took up his position as guard outside the door, and Hewitt set up the device that would automatically shut off the pile.
Presently, uneasily, he went to the door where he could see Mackarett. “No sign of her?” he asked.
Mackarett shook his head.
Dissatisfied, Hewitt returned to his position at the pile. A dozen times, then, he fingered the lever that would begin to shut off the power. But each time he withdrew his hand.
He knew what it was. In spite of his conviction that all means were justified, actually he could not knowingly be responsible for the death of another human being. The very extent of what he had done, and tried to do, during the past ten years, showed how strong was his motivation in that direction.
He had an obsession to preserve life, not destroy it. He could lie, steal and cheat for that purpose, but he could not kill. The pressure of that was so powerful that even to think of fighting it was to realize how hopeless such a fight would be.
Restlessly, he went again to the door. Mackarett saw him and said, “What’s keeping that girl? She’s driving me crazy!”
But he did not suggest that the pile be shut down, anyway. It struck Hewitt that this odd individual, who had come on the voyage because of some kind of hallucinatory experience—this man also did not think of dealing death to others to gain his own ends.
Even Juanita, embittered though she was, still little more than a teen-ager, had suffered a qualm of conscience.
Thought of the girl reminded him that she had left Grayson. He shook his head, uneasily. It was unfortunate. She would have to make a choice between two men—Grayson and himself. Every woman on this tremendous journey would have to bear children.
Mackarett said, “Here she comes!”
Hewitt jumped, and went back to the instrument board. He stood, waiting.
In a moment he would have to make up his mind. Tensely, he hoped that her news would be that Tellier was back.
He heard Mackarett speak to the girl. Then there was silence. Juanita said something Hewitt didn’t catch, her tone was so low. Then more silence.
Hewitt was astounded at the delay. Didn’t these two realize? He turned toward the door, and shouted angrily, “Hurry up! For heaven’s sake!”
At that, she came through the door. Her face was the color of lead. Hewitt, on the verge of yelling at her again, swallowed his anger. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
There was a sound at the door. For a fateful moment, Hewitt glared over the girl’s shoulder at the men who were plunging into the room. Then, in a spasm of energy, he tried to do three things at once.
He started to turn back to the control board. He grabbed awkwardly with one hand for the lever that would shut off the drive. With the other hand, he clawed at his own weapon.
A paralyzer beam caught him in the shoulder, with all his actions still unfinished. He went down, cursing, his muscles twitching. He heard the clatter of his own paralyzer on the floor. Somebody kicked it out of his reach.
Through a blur, he saw Juanita Grayson. “I’m so sorry!” she sobbed.
She was cut off by Warwick, harshly. “What are you sorry about? You didn’t do anything.” He turned to Hewitt with a sneer. “I saw her peeking around the corner of the ramp, and there was something about her that made me suspicious. I got it out of her, by heaven!”
Hewitt groaned inwardly. It was an old, old story. Too many people were not just weak or strong of character. They wavered between the two. And it always showed.
As a result, his cause was lost, unless—
A FEW minutes later, Warwick said violently, “What do you mean only four can be rescued? Do you take me for a simpleton? If four, why not forty? What are you trying to pull off?”
He was a blond young giant with sea-blue eyes. His face was twisted with suspicion as he went on: “Listen, Hewitt, I don’t get what’s going on. Tellier was out just now in the lifeboat. He practically had to use a telescope to see our sun. We’re just about half a light-year from Proxima Centauri. This ship must be in both places at once for you to have got aboard. Is that the explanation?”
“It’s the zone—” Hewitt began. He broke off. “Proxima is that close?”
Not for the first time since the Hope of Man had come back to the Earth’s atmosphere, he felt staggered. His picture of the “zone,” never very clear, suffered another change. He had found it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a “zone” actually traveling far in excess of the velocity of light. And yet, the indications were that the speed had been light-years in a day—which only made it more difficult to think of it as “speed” or “movement.”
Most of the evidence seemed to be in now. According to Grayson’s logbook, the ship had ceased registering acceleration at 177,000 miles a second. That fitted with the one-to-three telescoping effect he had observed when he first came aboard.
It didn’t fit in with a 973-1 atmospheric pressure difference. It didn’t fit with the matter density that had enabled the ship to penetrate the Earth’s crust. Those more spectacular phenomena could only have occurred normally at a velocity so close to that of light-speed that the difference would be hard to measure by any known methods.
Was it possible the Hope of Man had continued accelerating in the zone? That might account for the fact that it was acting as if it were traveling at two different speeds at the same time.
On that basis, assuming the existence of the “zone,” it was possible to conceive of the Hope of Man “simultaneously” occupying a position in normal space near the Centauri suns, and, four light years away, another position in the zone.
It would not, of course, be in two places at the same time with respect to the same observer. According to Einsteinian physics, there was no such thing as identical instant of time for more than one observer. To Hewitt, the ship was—or had been—in the solar system. To the people aboard, it was out in space.
Hewitt shook his head wonderingly.
“But if that’s how it is,” he said aloud, half to himself, “it would mean—”
He caught himself, and pleaded, “Warwick, shut off the drive! Even as we talk here, hours are going by outside.” Warwick was cold. “You can’t fool me. It’ll be at least a year before the Earth’s orbit could again intersect the orbit of the ship. In the letter—which you swear to—you say the ship is only traveling at ten miles an hour. At that speed, it can’t catch up with the Earth, which moves through space at around eighteen miles a second.”
He ended angrily. “What have you got to say to that, Hewitt?”
Hewitt said, “While you were talking, fifteen hours went by. Man, man, use your head.”
HE FELT hopeless. At this final hour, he was up against the wall of another man’s ignorance. Warwick’s training was so limited, it did not strike him that the ten-mile apparent speed was in addition to Earth’s orbital velocity. Explaining the details to Warwick could only lead to more questions. Nevertheless, Hewitt made the attempt.
When he had finished, Warwick said stubbornly, “I know what you’ve got on your mind. That stupid sun business, Well, don’t think we’re giving up our chance to get off this ship!”
It was the reaction Hewitt had expected: unthinking, concerned only with the man’s own desires. Mentally, he gave Warwick up. No more scientific explanation. This fight was on a different level.
He said grimly, “Warwick, I’m the only man who knows how to get you off. I’ll do it when you cut off the drive, not a second before.”
Warwick persisted, “But you admit there’s no immediate danger of plunging into the earth?”
It would happen in two hours, ship time. But long before that—in little more than an hour—the sun horror would take place.
The impact of that made him raise his voice. Loudly, he called out to the others—both men and women—gathered in the corridor: “Stop this madman! If you listen to him, you’ll be dead in forty minutes !”
That was a lie, but he had to have a few minutes leeway.
There was a stir. Several women looked uneasy, and tugged at the arms of their men. Hewitt saw Tellier under guard standing in the background. He called to the physicist in a piercing voice: “Tellier, when you were outside, you saw the Centauri suns nearby. Is that right?”
“Yes.” The physicist spoke in a low tone.
“In your estimate how long will it take us to get there?”
“It’ll take us about three months to slow down. Then a few weeks while we maneuver for a landing.”
“That’s normal time. With the time-contraction effect, part of that slowing down will seem only a half or a third as long?” That was only a guess.
Tellier hesitated. “That’s about right.”
Hewitt whirled on the group. “Think,” he said, “you’re only about two months from your destination. Surely after all this time, you won’t give up when there’s so little more time to go.”
He saw that Warwick was about to speak. He rushed on: “Don’t give up now! In less than eight weeks you’ll be landing on a planet that will belong to you. And all the stuff aboard this ship, millions of dollars worth of material—yours, if you land!”
Warwick yelled, “Folks, it’s the old sun-explosion nonsense that’s driving him! If we slow down now, it’ll take us four years to get back to Earth!”
Hewitt said earnestly. “It isn’t as if this were an ordinary old-style colonizing expedition. We have tools and equipment, advanced machinery. Most of you will live better than you ever did on Earth!”
He went on before Warwick could speak: “What you don’t seem to realize is that you rebelled in order to stop the drive. You risked your lives to do that. Now, one man among you has decided to prevent you. Are you going to let him? You have a right to make up your own minds. Don’t let one man dictate to you!” He stopped. Warwick was drawing an automatic. The man had a twisted smile on his face. He faced the group squarely, a big, arrogant, determined man. He said flatly: “I tell you, the only danger that Hewitt has in mind is from the sun. He’s insane about that. You folks stick with me, and you’ll be on good old terra firma in less than a day.”
He waved his gun menacingly. “And now, if anybody wants to make trouble just let him step forward—”
No one moved. Hewitt shouted, “Don’t let one man cow you. I tell you this is life and death—
A fist that seemed to be made of iron caught him in the mouth. He half-fell, then recovered. Dizzily, he looked up into Warwick’s face. The big man spoke from between clenched teeth: “Any more troublemakers?”
There were none. The tight smile was back on Warwick’s face. He said in a silken tone, “You’ll be living up in the crew’s quarters from now on. If we have to go back the long way, believe me, you won’t enjoy the trip. If you’re so much as seen down at this level, you’ll get a bullet where it’ll do you the least good.”
He turned to Mackarett. “You, too!” he said.
The plump man started to protest, but Warwick cut him off. “Get!” he said.
AS THEY headed for the ramp, Hewitt was already bracing himself. The choice, it seemed to him, was perfectly simple: Die now, or an hour from now!
He turned to Tellier, who was just behind him. He asked tensely, “When you were out in the lifeboat, did you have a hard time keeping up with the Hope of Man?”
The physicist shrugged. “It took all the power we had. Mr. Hewitt—” earnestly—“you cannot imagine against what resistance the Hope of Man is maintaining its velocity. And the lifeboat had to contend with the same resistance.”
Hewitt, who had seen the relevant instruments, could imagine only too well.
He saw that the ramp was only a score of feet away. He said hastily, “Which airlock did you go out of? One or two?”
“Two.”
Less than a dozen feet to go. He had the information he needed. But there were more questions in his mind.
“Tellier, what in your opinion will happen when the drive is shut off?”
The answer was prompt. “On the basis of what you said in the letter, and what I’ve heard you say, my opinion is that the ship will immediately revert to its position in normal space. That is, near Centaurus.”
Hewitt drew a deep breath. “Tellier,” he said, “why didn’t you shut off the drive, as we asked you to do in the letter?”
The scientist stared at him, “You didn’t give us time,” he said. “Why, I’d barely finished reading it when—”
He stopped. He had lost his audience. They were at the ramp.
The guard who had been ahead of them, stepped aside and partly blocked the ramp that led down. He motioned with his automatic. “Up!” he said curtly.
Hewitt started forward obediently, then turned and kicked the man in the stomach. It was the crudest blow he had struck in his life. The guard doubled up with a cry.
Hewitt plunged down the ramp. A bullet screamed past his ear, struck the wall. Then he was around the curve of the spiral, temporarily safe. Behind him, he heard Warwick shout: “Phone the engine room! Shoot him in the legs!”
He wasn’t going to the engine room.
“. . . damn you, Tellier! Get out of the way!”
That was the last he heard, but it gave him a picture of Tellier blocking pursuit for just those vital few seconds.
HE REACHED the corridor on which was the entrance to the seventh balcony of the lower storeroom. At a dead run, he headed for it. If I can make it, he was thinking, without their seeing me, they’ll keep on going down—
He made it. And still he forced himself to new exertions. With every ounce of strength left in his body he ran towards the spacesuit, where he had left it a seeming age before. Panting, he crawled between the up-ended bolts and scrambled onto the saddle. His fingers trembled as he pressed the button that started the upper section of the suit sliding down to join the lower. The two rubber linings squeezed together, and became air-tight.
He had a monster in his control now. Out into the corridor he raced, and towards the ramp. A crewman on the way down stopped, teetered on one leg, and then raised his automatic.
He fired one bullet. It jangled against the armored suit. The next second, with a yell of alarm, the man was flattening himself against a wall. Hewitt maneuvered past him, and raced on up the ramp to the airlock corridor.
Amazingly, it was deserted. Women and other noncombatants must have been rushed up the ramp when the shooting started. And Warwick and his men had followed him down. They’d be back—long before he could do all that he had to do.
